Unscientific Method
by Calapine
Summary: The beginning is a very important time for the Doctor and Rose.


**Unscientific Method**

_"They were students." _

Rationalisation.

Common and expected and normal. She stopped pretty quickly, and then there should have been fear.

The unexpected curiosity, the constant questions, the refusal to accept no for an answer. That was better.

Nah, that was fantastic. And he danced the banter for a few minutes, flexing old muscles and thinking of old friends, but then he had to go save the world, and she was still only human. He ended the jokes and told her how far away he was, and how she was too fragile to follow.

That should have been an ending.

_"Forget me, Rose Tyler." _

But she knew that she never would, and she didn't want him to leave because he was more alive than anyone that she'd ever met and she wanted to take a little piece of that magic and make it her own.

When he shot not-Mickey with a champagne cork there was this tremor of excitement as she realised that she was standing on the very edge of something entirely new, and that if she couldn't fly, she was going to crash.

So it wasn't just Mickey who was losing his head as the patrons scrambled screaming for the exits. She hit the alarm because that was the sensible level-headed thing to do, and having knives for hands was sort of like having a gun, and if she looked away she could pretend the head was still where it was supposed to be, and that this was just your regular psychopathic patron trying to kill another customer.

He held her hand again and she was flying away from danger and couldn't catch her breath. It was nothing like fear, but a little bit like being drunk. Suddenly she was thinking of all the world flying around the sun and she was afraid that if she let go of him, she'd be the one that flew off.

This wasn't any more real that anything else, it just felt that way.

There was no doubt until that little piece of rationality smiled out of the shadows again, and reminded her that two and two is actually four, and she'd better stick to simple equations cause maths was never her strong suit. She listened for the time it took her to walk around the blue box, and rationalisation might be pretty but he was being no fun at all today, so she stopped trying to work out how little boxes and big rooms fitted together and moved on to the next question.

_"Are you alien?" _

He said yes in such a very ordinary way that she didn't have the heart to doubt him. If she could touch something, it was real, and she didn't care about the science. She looked around to see a lot of very real, very alien things and just accepted it in the same way that she accepted she'd never get through A-level Chemistry. A choking sob, and she was all right.

She realised that she wasn't bothered by the fact that he was an alien, not really; she just wished that he was a little more human. Mickey might be a dope, but he was her dope and she bloody well did give a damn about whether he lived or died, thanks very much. This wasn't anger disguising fear; it was anger at an injustice, because compassion should be universal. Especially if you were a doctor.

Something inside her woke up as she stared at the London Eye, cause she had worked it out, and she might just have saved the world. Or something. She was flying again. And it was better this time, because she knew where she was going and she was getting used to the height, and didn't ever want to let go.

_"I've got nothing..." _

He was surprised, despite everything she'd done so far. But then, he remembered, that's why he loved humans so much. He could see that she was flying, she was falling and he caught her. Simple, and he liked that, even if it was a dangerous sport.

It wasn't his fault that the trail was going round in circles and wrapping itself around her. He'd have suspected conspiracy, but she was alive enough to attract that sort of thing without any help.

So he didn't get pushed into the lava-like form that the Nestene Consciousness had adopted and humanity didn't get wiped out and plastic didn't inherit the Earth.

It was a happy ending, because this girl from Earth had done a very silly, very brave thing when she should have been at home watching telly with a cup of tea and some biscuits.

Humanity sparkled sometimes.

She could have died; she was still smiling. She could have been bitter; she was too busy throwing back a retort. And he thought that she could guess a little of what it was like everywhere else.

_"Thank you."_

Course he means it.

And he opened the door a second time, because everyone deserved a second chance.

She raced into the TARDIS, smiling. She wasn't afraid and she should have been. Because she didn't know what was out there, not yet. So she got to see it all now, because she was too unafraid to stay at home and let him get on with it all by himself.

It's all waiting, and somehow the co-ordinates mean more now that he has to think about what it'll look like through her eyes.

He's not alone anymore.


End file.
